The author of the short story Edgar Allan Poe, was born on January 19, 1809 and died on October 7, 1849. His parents had died when he was very young, thus he became an orphan but was later adopted into the Allan family by John and Frances Allan. Poe was an American writer, poet, and journalist; he is considered to be part of the American Romantic movement. He had struggled all his life financially and had earned his living by writing essays and short stories which had earned him very little. Poe died from unknown circumstances due to brain congestion, drugs, alcohol, heart disease, suicide, and the list goes on. His experiences with the deaths of many close people to him may be the result of his own psyche going insane.
In The Tell-Tale Heart the story is told by an unknown narrator. He is actually the Protagonist and the Antagonist in this story. To further explain this, he is both the victim and the predator of his own actions. He plots to kill the Old Man being the predator and becomes the victim of guilt when he hears the sound of heart beating . At first in the beginning of the tale, he claims that he harbors no ill will towards the Old Man and he is always kind to him. The only thing that disturbed him was the "Vulture eye" the Old Man possessed. The narrator states, “Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees – very gradually – I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.” This can explain the inner feelings of loath and disturbed hate he had for the Old Man.
Much earlier in the opening of the story, he claims that he is indeed very nervous but not does not consider himself to be mad only having sharp "Acute" senses because of "The disease". This disease he speaks of is a disorder known as Neurosis. Neurosis is a class of functional mental disorders involving distress but neither delusions nor hallucinations, whereby behavior is not outside socially acceptable norms. This disorder is also known as psychoneurosis or neurotic disorder (Wikipedia). The narrator seems to be suffering from this severe disease yet claims that it has made him aware of all things.
After 8 consecutive nights, silently he still waits like a shadow looking over the Old Man in his sleep. Waiting for the opportunity to murder him but ultimately to eliminate his eye. When he succeeds and murders the Old Man, he disposes the body by dismembering the corpse and hides it underneath a wooden plank. He finally feels that all is well and solved. He does not regret or even consider the event that just happened then policemen arrive for an inspection. The narrator gladly welcomes the policemen and displays his confidence yet after their long stay he suddenly becomes paranoid because he hears the sound of a beating heart. The noise haunts him as the sound gets louder and louder until he is no longer able to contain his guilt and at last confesses to the policemen by revealing all that has really happened and that he was actually the murderer.
The field of Psychology was established by an Austrian psychoanalyst named Sigmund Freud; he is the founding father of the field and has written many theories concerning the functions and thoughts of a person’s psyche. According to Wikipedia, Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism is the literary approach where critics see the text as if it were a kind of dream. The hidden message in the text lies latent and it is the critic’s job to unravel the mystery by identifying the symbolism and the language used and arrives at the true meaning.
In Psychoanalytic Criticism, this specific literary approach is how critics interpret literature as dreams. The text represses its real or latent content behind obvious content (Wikipedia), therefore in dreams they can be expressed as some sort of outlet to lessen the actual reality that occurs in the real world itself. The process of changing from latent to manifest content is known as the dream work (Wikipedia). In the article Unconscious Mind, "While past thoughts and memories may be deleted from immediate consciousness, they direct the thoughts and feelings of the individual from the realm of the unconscious". This quote may be able to explain the narrator's unconscious feelings towards the old man himself because he was driven to the limit of going mad that because of the old man's eye he had decided that he should be put to death.
One of the main symbols appearing in this story is the "Vulture Eye", the narrator explains how it deeply disturbs him as he gazes upon it and that it is a sight that makes his blood run cold. According to a website enotes.com, the vulture eye symbolizes the coming of death. The vulture is a huge flying bird and is the predator circling around a sickly animal or person waiting until it dies so that it can consume the corpse. Therefore, the Old Man was nearing death as he was soon to fall victim before the narrator. Many other symbols appearing in the story are shadow, death, corpse, and heart. In Shadow Psychology from Wikipedia, the shadow is a part of the unconscious mind consisting of repressed weaknesses, shortcomings, and instincts. This in general can explain the person's most personal and inner feelings and our strong feelings usually cannot be openly expressed, however in the dream world, all feelings and strong desires can be fulfilled and expressed beyond the ordinary limits in the real world. One of the most well known psychologists, Carl Jung, notes that "the shadow sometimes overwhelms a person's actions; for example, when the conscious mind is shocked, confused, or paralyzed by indecision".
Works Cited:
Holman and Snyder. “Edgar Allan Poe” About.com. web. 25 May 2010
Poe, Edgar. “The Tell-Tale Heart” PoeStories.com. web. 25 May 2010
“Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism” Wikipedia. 29 March 2010. web. 25 May 2010
“Shadow (Psychology)” Wikipedia. 20 May 2010. Web. 25 May 2010
